Theater of One
by Sunfalling
Summary: Set during vol.5. Dead for the second time, Kato is trapped in the theater of his mind, imprisoned by cords and toxic memories. KatoxKira introspective.


**Title:** Theater of One

**Author:** Sunfalling

**Fandom:** Angel Sanctuary

**Rating**: R (Language, disturbing imagery)

It's cold here, Kira. And lonely.

I sit in the empty theater, wrapped in the steel embrace of these hungry metallic cords. My only companions flash on the screen, clingy nightmares of a life that started out rather lousy and ended decently shitty. Would you smile if you saw me now? You always are smiling. Not an annoying cheerful, happy-day smirk like some morons. You just kind of smirk in a way—except, not arrogant or mean, just sort of sexy-mysterious.

So call me a fag. Yes, I think you're sexy. The first time I saw you, I wondered how you could be so much brighter than everyone else when you looked so dark. You had a sense of maturity and secret power over me, over everyone, which I couldn't understand. Despite your reputation as a wonderful student, you can kick ass when you want to and everyone respects you, even the local punks. I respected you. Maybe a little too much. I followed you around like a cautious/hopeful stray, stiffing in your path and watching you from dark corners…until you finally noticed me: a delinquent bully piece-of-crap.

"Kato." When you said that the first time, I couldn't believe it. My name on the lips of Kira. "I heard you got a tattoo. What of?"

Dumbfounded and proud, I showed you the elaborate crest on my shoulder. Secretly, I wanted you to touch it, but your eyes alone raised goose bumps on my skin. You offered to pierce my ears if I wanted. My indifferent shrug wasn't very convincing, I think.

After school, I came over to your house and listened to you pitch your voice against your dad's, the two of you fighting like strangers, except that strangers are too polite to be cruel and don't really know how to stab each other where it matters. I heard once that statistics show it's much more common to be hurt or killed by someone you know than by some wacko you've never met before.

"Hold still," you told me when I sat in your loft. Your fingers felt cool against my face, holding my jaw. A sharp stab of pain distracted me from your touch and I yelped in surprise.

"Don't be a baby," you scolded. I felt my eyes burn with suppressed tears and I tried to bluff my way out.

"It'd better not get infected," I said, touching my ear gingerly.

"It won't if you take care of it." Your eyes looked weird. Kind of clear and reflective, like glass or water. I thought then that there must be something inhuman about you, something that I couldn't hold onto, beautiful and sharp and cold as the blade of a knife.

We hung out a lot in Jr. High, two lazy, rebellious guys. All the same, I always felt that I stood clearly on one side of the tracks while you straddled both sides with ease, playing the double role of the brilliant student and the carefree slacker effortlessly. But I wasn't the only one you screwed around with. I soon found out that there was this other kid you knew from middle school, the bully-magnet Setsuna Mudo.

Back then, I couldn't understand. He was the scrawny pretty-boy who fainted in the middle of fights and—according to the rumors—wanked off to thoughts of his little sister. Something burned in me when I saw the two of you together like you had known each other forever. His hair is bright gold, not peroxide blonde like me, and he has wide, earnest eyes that suck people in.

When I first saw three silver earrings looped through his left ear, I felt like throwing up.

You soften when you're around him and the cold, hard edges of your eyes smooth into something strangely gentle. Sometimes we talked during breaks, sometimes I saw you after school. But you had already drifted away—not nearly as quickly as I had bolted away from you. Everyone is born with the natural reflex to jerk away from fire and I've developed reflexes like this even further. Let's just say once a guy gets shocked enough times, he learns to stay away from electric fences.

One of the last times we really spent together, I crashed at your house, hiding away from my family and their sticky questions.

"Not going home tonight?" you said. I just laughed. You heated up some miso soup for us and settled down to start your homework. I stretched out on the couch with my bowl of soup and burped loudly, hoping to annoy you.

"How did you do on the exams?" you asked.

I snorted with disgust. "How do you think it did, Mr. Know-it-all?"

This is what hurts. Not the prickling sickness of failure but the memory of those long, warm nights you had spent trying to coach me through piles of textbooks, your face lit in glow of your desk lamp. Sometimes I had sneered and tried to make snide comments, but you gave me such long-suffering, calm patience that I soon settled into the pattern of your voice and the sincerity of your mouth as you spoke of events and formulas and proper nouns. I had stretched the wide collar of my shirt over my shoulder and frowned in concentration, trying to burn this information onto the surface of my mind—not for the sake of the tests of teachers. For the sake of you, Kira.

You are taller than the other seniors at our school and your hair has grown dark and shaggy, falling down the back of your neck like some reckless punk's…like me. Sometimes I see flashes of anger in your eyes like the sparks of a cigarette lighter. Normally, though, you are cool and calm, your knowing gaze clear of emotions but deep with understanding.

"You're not going home tonight," you said, that night on the couch. You already knew this before I said it. Maybe it was the hopelessness in my smile or the drug-induced twitching of my fingers. Maybe you just know me better than anyone ever has. Knew me, I should say. It's stupid to talk in this way when you're dead… I'm dead, I mean.

When I was alive, I thought if only I had you alone, away from that kid, I could make you like me. But when I did get with you, all the words I wanted to say crumpled up in my mouth like garbage. I choked on my own stupidity and worthlessness when I only wanted to be something for you, something you wouldn't despise. You were better off with Mudo after all and I hated knowing that.

The last time I saw you without him was when you came to tell me to visit Dad at the hospital. I could hardly understand the words that were coming out of your mouth. Pills littered the carpet like loose change. There was a bad taste in my mouth and I really needed a glass of water. My body felt heavy under your slow scrutiny. You looked like a beautiful hallucination with your black hair loose around your face and your shirt hanging open. I wanted to touch your face but I had forgotten how to move my hand.

My escape, you called it. Well, it was a hell of a lot better than sticking around here, attending funerals for old bastards like that asshole who you called my father. I was expecting a little sympathy there, considering your blatant attempts to make push your own dad as far away as you could. If only we could have switched roles, Kira, switched lives. You could handle my fucked up family with one hand tied behind your back, and as a bonus, you'd get an old man who actually does hate you as much as you want him too. Me? I never asked for this shit, but I can't say I didn't deserve it.

The truth is...there is no handy escape for people like me. Even in death I have to relive my miserable life as I'm forced to watch all the choices, all the shit. Shall we go over the what-ifs? What if that slutty goth chick hadn't offered me a few drinks and a little baggie of comfort that night? What if I hadn't freaked out over my sister's fucking music box? What if my mom wasn't a whore? What if I had never swallowed the pill that freaky-ass, long haired gaijin fag gave me? What if you loved _me_ instead of weak, silly, pretty Mudo?

Yeah, Kira. I can say it now. I can say whatever I fucking want. You held him in the middle of the school yard that day something took me over, made me do things I didn't understand. Filthy fliers floated down all around you both, littered the grass, and you held him with all your strength.

"Sometimes you have to fight," you told me. But I didn't know how to fight the pull of the pills, the words of my father, the alien presence crawling inside of my head. Running is another reflex I've developed.

Seeing you with him became a familiar ache for me. Sometimes I could pretend it didn't matter. Sometimes I could pretend to hate you. I want to hate you now but it would be better if I didn't care about you at all. Hate gives you way too much power.

Now I realize that it's impossible to hate Mudo anymore. He's just this fierce, crazy kid who cares too much about everyone and thinks he can save the world. Maybe I understand now what you saw in him, why you stood by him like a sentinel all throughout high school. Mudo can't save the world. But he's so ridiculously…fearless, reckless in his love. He killed me, you know. Of course you know. You were there. You watched me die, you bastard. What you don't know is that I died for him a second time, of my own will. Would you do that much for him, Kira?

I was surprised not to see you here in hell, trailing after the kid like you always did. You followed him everywhere, but not here, not to a cold, smoggy, molding death. What would I do if I saw you again? Let me think. Something burns in my chest when I imagine you, something buried deep in my gut. Maybe it's just these goddamn wires taking over my body again.

Fuck. I sure as hell wouldn't stare at you again. I swear I wouldn't think about your cool, steady hands or your knife-sharp eyes. I could look at you now without the raw need or the crippling fear. I'm empty, Kira, and cold. If I saw you again, I would curse until I had nothing left to say and then tear you apart piece by piece. Your throat first, so you couldn't say anything to hurt me. Then those fucking eyes (we'll see how hard they are). Next, I'd rip your hair in fistfuls from your scalp and scatter it around us like dark crow feathers. Your white skin would come off in long, wet strips, smooth on one side and mushy on the other. Maybe I'd eat your heart. Maybe I'd grind it under my heel, just for a laugh. Irony is so much more effective in hell. Once I have you stripped down to a mess of blood, tissue, bones, and tendons, there will be nothing left of you, the boy-man who had so much power over me. Nothing left to hate, nothing left to love.

You were supposed to protect me, Kira, keep me safe from the demons in my life, the monster in my home. Yeah, I ran away, but you sure as hell weren't very good at following. You followed Mudo. So what, you couldn't protect him either? Did you tell him to keep fighting before you sent him to hell?

It's the people closest to us who are most likely to kill us.

And I always thought my dad would kill me. When I close my eyes, the nightmares continue to play on the surface of my eyelids, images of my face clenched in rage and fear, my sister's terror. I'm the only one to see them, the only one who watches them now, all alone in this shit-hole. Theater of one. But then again, who really wants to see reruns of some pathetic teenager's life? (Funny thing: you're never in my nightmares, Kira.)

These cords wrap around me tighter, snaking under my arms, brushing against my face. It's almost like having lover—a desperate, clinging, artificial companion that worms its way around me, inside me, and won't let go.

No, I don't want you to come here, Kira… Don't you dare think I want you.

It's just so fucking cold.


End file.
